The Cloud Collector Page 3

  ‘Didn’t we leave loose ends in Boston?’ relentlessly persisted Singleton.

  ‘Again, very definitely no!’ insisted Irvine, believing he was winning the inevitable moral argument. ‘Through the Syrian we got to two more whose supposedly hidden Facebook exchanges claimed Al Qaeda affiliation. The FBI has the entire group under blanket surveillance—with court-approved wiretaps on cell phones, landlines, and Internet connections—until this new Al Qaeda–affiliated group and other associates are identified. From the Colombian Facebook traffic there was a steer to the three-man Boston assassination team. The Boston assassination trio are based in Miami; their day job is acting as the conduit for a cocaine cartel working out of Medellín. Everything’s now with the Drug Enforcement Administration, who didn’t have the Miami three flagged until we told them.’

  Marian said, ‘I logged other partial penetrations, following the guidelines you set for us. How many more fatalities have there been with your intervention with those?’ Once again it wasn’t an accusation.

  ‘Two in Washington, a month and a half ago,’ responded Irvine. ‘Both were Americans, former infantry who’d done four tours between them in Afghanistan. Came home not just disillusioned but anti-U.S.; converted to Islam and met their recruiter, an Iranian named al Aswamy, in an Arlington mosque. I got that from al Aswamy’s Facebook. He was using a binary code, half-encrypted on his private Facebook wall, the other half on a different time and day by cell-phone texts, read properly only when the two halves were put together. There was also a reference to another radicalized Muslim group in Annapolis; they’d apparently rejected al Aswamy after he made a recruitment approach: they’d identified him as a Sunni. They were Shiites.’

  ‘I got their cell number for you,’ remembered Barker.

  ‘Which was all I needed. Al Aswamy was routing through Pakistan’s Islamabad on a darknet to conceal his Tehran control. I hacked back into his Facebook traffic and his cell and reversed al Aswamy’s original message en route about recruiting the Americans. I added that they’d been dishonourably discharged from the U.S. infantry after an incident in Sangin in which two Shia girls were raped before the entire family were shot dead. It was an actual atrocity that occurred in Afghanistan, without any arrests. I also added, as if in reply to al Aswamy, that in view of the Annapolis rejection he anonymously leaked to U.S. authorities that they were planning a terrorist attack and sent it as an apparently misdirected e-mail.’

  ‘That would have used al Aswamy’s e-mail address, as well as whatever identification he’d let them have when he originally approached them?’ predicted Marian.

  ‘That’s how it worked.’

  ‘But not with one hundred percent success,’ challenged Singleton. ‘You said the two Anacostia Americans were killed. Al Aswamy’s the leader; what happened to him?’

  Irvine smiled at the prescience. ‘He got away and I’m damned glad he did. The two Americans were hit at the very moment they were to get instructions for an attack, although we didn’t know that at the time. We only discovered it when we got the recording of their broken telephone conversation, five words: The attack is to be … We’ve gotten more since. But not enough. Just that it’s still to be staged, but not where or when. Or precisely by which newly recruited group.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Marian Lowell, even-voiced. ‘We haven’t gotten enough by a very long measure. What are you doing about it?’

  Singleton unexpectedly answered, ‘The Facebook account and separate Internet addresses you’re having me monitor are al Aswamy’s, right?’

  ‘Right. And they begin on Halal and route through darknets from Iranian intelligence.’

  ‘What if they use a different Vevak route to Facebook that we don’t have?’ demanded Marian. ‘Or call from a landline or cell we’re not aware of for the second part of a binary code? Or use any other sort of PDA we don’t know about and aren’t listening to? We’re wide-open on this!’

  Irvine said, ‘You’re forgetting the Trojan horse I’ve got in the Tehran system. Anything protectively routed from al Aswamy would eventually go through the Tehran router in which I am embedded. I’d know the minute it arrived: the computer alerts are tied to my cell and that’s permanently on wherever I am. Additionally—and obviously essentially—al Aswamy is under the tightest twenty-four-hour, CIA surveillance. We couldn’t have missed anything, can’t miss anything.’

  ‘We’re relying on just one electronic source, an interrupted telephone call,’ Singleton objected. ‘I’d like a secondary confirmation.’

  ‘So would I,’ supported Marian at once.

  ‘So would we all,’ agreed Irvine, uneasy at the opposition from the two whom he considered the strongest of his team. ‘You tell me how often we’ve had two sources positively to be sure of a terrorist act.’

  ‘We guess or surmise rather than be sorry after an event,’ argued Marian. ‘You’re talking about an attack you know is going to take place. You surely can’t wait for the entire picture before we move: you pick up al Aswamy, you prevent an attack you’ve got evidence is going to take place. Waiting creates an unnecessary risk.’

  ‘Al Aswamy doesn’t move without our knowing. We don’t get something soon, I’ll reconsider. I’ll give it another week.’

  ‘This is going to be a totally cohesive group from now on, isn’t it?’ queried Singleton.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Everyone’s going to know everything that’s happening?’ persisted the man.

  ‘It can’t work any other way now,’ confirmed Irvine, illogically wishing there were, reluctant as he was even to have had to disclose as much as he had to those he implicitly trusted and upon whom he relied for Operation Cyber Shepherd to work.

  Marian said, ‘What’s the CIA’s contribution to all this, apart from the half-assed need-to-know stupidity?’

  ‘Financial,’ replied Irvine easily. ‘It’s their budget, not ours. Additionally, when we isolate a foreign source or group, their guys on the ground, wherever that is, have to provide the backup for our manipulation. Likewise, here in America.’

  ‘What if the contacts here are Americans?’ seized the woman. ‘The Supreme Court has ruled it’s illegal for the CIA to operate against American nationals within the United States.’

  ‘But not upon foreign nationals in the United States,’ argued Irvine. ‘If it’s an all-American group we move against their contacts overseas and turn the American end over to Homeland Security.’

  ‘The CIA has a code-breaking facility,’ Singleton pointed out. ‘What’s our liaison with their division?’

  ‘None,’ said Irvine. ‘This is a specialized unit performing a very specialized function.’

  Marian said, ‘I’ve never heard of a joint operation like this before.’

  ‘There hasn’t been one like this before,’ said Irvine.

  ‘That’s what worries me,’ said Singleton.

  Marian turned to the man. ‘I’m not paying out on the bet.’

  ‘I don’t expect you to,’ said Singleton.

  * * *

  Irvine was fifteen minutes early for his meeting with Harry Packer, but was ushered immediately into the liaison director’s office for a glad-handed greeting. Before Irvine properly settled himself, Packer said, ‘I know I stayed out of it—and told you why—but between the two of us, I thought that was one hell of a presentation at Langley, Jack.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Irvine guardedly. This was only his second meeting with the man and Irvine regarded this encounter as an assessment.

  ‘What do you think of Johnston and Bradley?’ It was important Packer identify the strengths and weaknesses of everyone with whom he was now linked. He wished to hell he’d better identified the strengths and weaknesses of those who’d taken $500 off him after the Langley session.

  ‘Cautious, maybe,’ suggested Irvine. ‘Thought there might have been a little more enthusiasm for what could be a career-builder for them.’

  ‘That’s what
I thought.’

  A man of other people’s opinions, judged Irvine. ‘You foresee a working-relationship problem?’

  ‘Too early to say,’ avoided Packer. ‘But that’s why I think it’s important for you and me to work close together: make sure they don’t steamroll us, just because they’re financing the whole thing.’

  ‘How, exactly, do you see our working to avoid that?’ asked Irvine uneasily.

  ‘I’m not suggesting we’re constantly in each other’s pockets,’ quickly qualified Packer, eager to rig his selective-information safety net. ‘I know the CIA better than you do, can recognize the curveballs quicker than you. I’ll watch the DC manoeuvring, you keep me technically ahead with the code-breaking.’

  Irvine couldn’t have established the boundaries keeping the other man as far away as possible better himself! ‘That sounds just fine.’

  ‘And I want you to know, Jack, I don’t have any reservations about how successful this operation is going to be.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  4

  Sally was the anglicized name for Selwa, a change she’d introduced within a month of her parents’ assassination. Unbeknownst to both she’d never liked the hybrid of an Arab name with her English father’s surname: from her early teens she’d thought it appeared that she was undecided about which of the two cultures she bridged. It certainly did not reflect a rejection because of the atrocity, although it obviously coincided with her being moved from Amman to London. That relocation—and the initial unwelcome safe-house precaution—had been imposed by MI5 in its initial mistaken belief that its Jordanian network was being targeted by a militant Islamic Al Qaeda faction or the newly emerging IS. In the year it took for the truth to emerge—that her parents had been the unintended, wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time victims of Hezbollah cross-border informer retribution—M15 had recognized its Arab-language deficiencies and drawn heavily upon Sally’s complete bilingualism. Six months after that, customary background vetting foreshortened because of her father’s station-chief credentials, Sally officially joined MI5’s Arab division. The only suitability examination to which she was subjected was psychological, to determine if she’d suffered mental trauma from the circumstances of her parents’ murder. The conclusion was that she had neither emotional disturbance nor generalized Arab antipathy: the official verdict was “exceptionally well adjusted, at every psychological level.”

  A further finding of that psychological profile was that Sally Hanning’s mental strength and resilience translated into a stubborn personal independence against authority in general and a refusal in particular to unquestioningly accept information even from supposedly professional or qualified sources.

  Sally didn’t consider her encounters with Detective Chief Superintendent Edward Pritchard or his deputed sergeant who’d escorted her to Roger Bennett’s hostel to be either qualified or professional. Which was why, to prevent any warned-against secret-service publicity, she’d used the inherited authority of the sergeant who originally escorted her to return to the hostel alone later the same afternoon. It took her less than thirty minutes to recover Bennett’s computer from a locker the earlier, dismissive police search hadn’t found, and which she, in turn, didn’t bother telling the police chief about before leaving Bradford.

  Before doing so Sally followed correct procedure, having Thames House officially advise the Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s equivalent of America’s NSA, of her cross-country journey to Cheltenham. A slightly built, quiet-spoken man whom Sally guessed to be no more than ten years older than her, was waiting when she got through the protracted security procedure at GCHQ. He told her his name was John, which she knew it wasn’t. She introduced herself as Sally because her name would have been on London’s notification to match her MI5 accreditation documents.

  ‘London said you wanted some technical help with the Bennett alert from America?’ he greeted, looking at the encased computer as he escorted her to a small, windowless interview room on the same ground-floor level. Sally knew she was still only in the outside perimeter of the communications hub.

  ‘I want this hard drive examined for deleted material that might connect with what came from America,’ elaborated Sally, putting the computer on the table between them. From his side John placed a slim, unmarked manila folder next to it.

  The man frowned. ‘It wouldn’t have been difficult for Bradford forensics to have done that for you, without your coming all this way.’

  ‘I want it done professionally, properly.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘Today. Bennett’s dead, murdered. There’s been a lot of time wasted.’

  ‘We didn’t know he’d been killed. The police didn’t tell us. Our involvement was limited to intelligence traffic, nothing more.’

  ‘Can you check everything on the hard drive today?’

  ‘Working from the date of the known American interception?’

  Sally hesitated. ‘We could initially go forward from there. We might need to go backwards, depending upon what we find. My guess is that there was earlier traffic that wasn’t intercepted.’

  John opened his folder, reading aloud: ‘“Invite the brothers to the celebration.”’ He looked up. ‘It certainly reads as if there was something earlier. Let’s start from the date of this transmission, see how and where we go from there.’

  ‘The Bradford murder file had that message in unencrypted English. Was that how it was originally intercepted by NSA? Or was it encrypted?’

  John went back to the file. ‘It was in English, on the private link from a Facebook account. It was encrypted in what amounted to little more than a schoolboy code: figures plus one for corresponding letter in the alphabet to decipher. Bennett would have had a crib to read it. It would have provided virtually instant translation.’ John smiled and looked up. ‘At first we agreed with America that the encryption was something incredibly clever, something we hadn’t come across before because it was too simple!’

  ‘So there won’t be any translation difficulties if there’s more, using the same encryption?’ She’d need to run a passport search, Sally reminded herself. There hadn’t been one among Bennett’s personal belongings she’d sifted through in Bradford or in the hostel computer locker. With one realization came another. ‘What did you do here, after getting that one message? Did you monitor the German sender’s computer address? And Bennett’s?’

  John returned to his folder. ‘Bennett’s message was intercepted from a Cologne Internet café. The account was in the name of Mohammed, which has to be the most generic Arabic name. We installed a monitor for a month. We put Bennett’s electronic address on a watch list, also for a month. After that we checked with Thames House, who said we could lift both.’

  It wasn’t just Bradford police who’d screwed up, Sally recognized. It might have helped if she’d at least had an indication from London that she was picking up a botched case. Edging the computer towards the man, she said, ‘Can we get started, to see how much time we might have lost so far.’

  ‘If there’s more and it’s encrypted Arabic, it’ll take longer than what’s left of today; the code will have to be broken and the Arabic translated. Sometimes there are words or colloquialisms too close in definition to give the instant translation you want.’

  ‘My mother was Jordanian,’ disclosed Sally. ‘I’m totally bilingual. Even with a difficult translation I could get a gist sufficiently for a general impression. And Bennett’s from a background that makes it doubtful he’d know any Arabic.’

  ‘So we could be lucky.’ The man smiled.

  ‘Luck would be a bonus.’ Sally at once regretted the rare self-pity; she didn’t even believe in luck.

  * * *

  Marian Lowell got to the commissary early, determined to get their already-chosen table from which they couldn’t be overhead. Burt Singleton came in as she was setting out her Caesar salad. He scuffed awkwardly with his tray from the service line and rema
ined standing.

  ‘The sole’s come off my boot,’ he complained.

  ‘Don’t do another home repair; buy new at Kmart.’ She was conscious of the occasional smiles and looks from other early diners, aware of the gossip that she and Singleton were longtime lovers. It wasn’t true but it didn’t bother either of them.

  ‘Maybe I should.’ He unloaded his plate of meat loaf and put both their empty trays on a nearby waiter stand. Coming back to the table but still standing, he said, ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ve been through every legal hearing in which the agency’s been involved in remit transgressions, particularly under Nixon and Bush. As well as through all the textbook references I could locate. I couldn’t find anything that even came close to this. And hacking isn’t a crime, by our definition; that is what our remit is, entering other people’s communications without their knowledge or permission, although I’ve never considered myself working as part of a botnet.’

  Singleton began to eat. ‘I couldn’t find a definite legal bar, either. But it’s pretty well set out that NSA doesn’t perform field operations.’

  ‘Jack covered that very specifically. Any fieldwork or humint retrieval is carried out by the CIA. And since 9/11 the courts have returned ambiguous rulings against us when we’ve been accused of wiretapping and bugging here at home, despite Signals Intelligence Directive 18 specifically prohibiting it without a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillances Court.’

  ‘Washington commandment handed down from Mount Sinai: “Nothing’s wrong or illegal until you’re caught doing it,”’ recited Singleton, quoting the in-house cynicism. ‘Don’t forget the 2013 uproar over our Prism Project precisely to monitor Facebook through Britain’s GCHQ, for which we gratefully handed over something like one hundred and fifty million dollars. What happens if there’s another whistle-blower like Edward Snowden?’